Matt Benjamin said he "always knew that I was going to move into the political arena" at some point.

Motivated in large part by two family events — he recently became a father, and he lost his own father and brother in a plane crash — Benjamin, 35, is now making the move he's long anticipated.

"Waiting for life to give me the opportunity seemed like I was rolling the dice, rather than seizing the opportunity now to take charge of building a good future for my family and for others," said Benjamin, a resident of south Boulder.

He said he also was inspired to run by the 2016 presidential election, and by "seeing our elected officials start to reject known truths." As a scientist who used to manage programs at Fiske Planetarium and remains active in several scientific capacities, he believes local government has also shifted away from evidence-based decision-making.

"Intellectualism is rampant in this community, but what I think has fallen off is our elected officials have not been commensurate with that community skill set," he said.

"If we are not truly effective in our governance, we fundamentally limit the potential success of every issue we deal with in our community," he said.

"That's been the big limit to achieving goals, whether it be homelessness and the fact that we seem to be reacting to it, our climate goals, affordable housing. ... We have good goals, but we have not enabled a good thorough process to reaching them."

On homelessness and other issues, he feels the city should be more pro-active, instead of waiting on crises. He's dismayed, for example, that the City Council enacted anti-crowding policies at Chautauqua Park only after access issues there reached a fever pitch.

"We need to start looking forward to the next few spots that crowds will start to hammer and put stress on," he said, noting the areas around the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Mesa Lab and Mount Sanitas as top priorities. "It would be irresponsible for us not to immediately start to look at how to handle those crowds as they grow. What we did at Chautauqua was, to me, a last resort."

According to Benjamin, the "sleeping giant" among campaign issues this year is transportation, which, he said, has gone "completely neglected"

He wants the City Council to explore new solutions to solve issues of congestion, including designating more streets as one-way. And he wants the exploration to be forward-thinking — a theme across his platform.

As an example, he believes the city should be "planning now" for electric, autonomous vehicle travel, both in terms of how that technology could change transit and how it might free up space for other forms of development on the vast amount of real estate that's currently devoted to paved roads.

Benjamin disagrees with the city's current approach to what Boulder planners call "inclusionary housing" for low- and moderate-income people. He wants to raise "way up" the current fee that developers can pay to satisfy their requirement to contribute to inclusionary housing.

Many of Benjamin's friends have left the city, he said, "because there's not a single opportunity for them to live here and raise their children." The issue goes beyond cost, he added, centering also on a dearth of certain housing types.

"We've got to look at land use and zoning in a way that can accommodate building more townhomes or single-family homes in less space than we currently allow," he said.

He'd also like to explore a community land trust, in which the trust acquires and keeps ownership of land for the purpose of housing development and long-term affordability.

Like several of his fellow candidates, Benjamin said he recently decided he no longer supports Boulder's bid for a municipal electric utility, and would rather explore other strategies to take meaningful climate action.

"Municipalization has become such an emotional issue," he said. "In many ways, the muni has become the goal unto itself. The process has become so much more complex and expensive than we all thought it would be."

Benjamin is an advocate for changing the City Council from only having at-large to members to electing members based on district. For now, though, he has alternate ideas for how local government can become more inclusive and make more people feel represented.

"I'd like to see more advisory panels from different groups having more time with council and staff — maybe you get three or four meetings a year," he said, noting as examples university students and Latino people, whose voices are generally under-represented in city proceedings.

"But," he added, "people won't choose to be a part of these things until they know they're actually a part of it."

The current council has talked about hosting open houses and town halls outside the walls of the Municipal Building, as a way to increase engagement and reach people in spaces they find convenient.

"Great idea, but the time has to come from somewhere," said Benjamin, who believes the City Council takes on too many projects and policies. "These ideas can only happen if something else goes off the agenda. ...It's a bit pie-in-the-sky and maybe a bit disingenuous, because you have to do the hard work of cutting before you figure out what to do with the time you just gained."

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